Bitcoin

Bitcoin prides itself on being a decentralized currency supported by a decentralized group. So how did you come to have the position as chief scientist? For my first bitcoin project in 2010, I created a site that then became pretty famous called the Bitcoin Faucet. I was giving away five bitcoins to anyone who went there. I started to submit code to Satoshi [Nakamoto, bitcoin's mysterious and anonymous creator] to improve the core system. Over time he trusted my judgment on the code I wrote. And eventually, he pulled a fast one on me because he asked me if it’d be OK if he put my email address on the bitcoin homepage, and I said yes, not realizing that when he put my email address there, he’d take his away. I was the person everyone would email when they wanted to know about bitcoin. Satoshi started stepping back as leader of project and pushing me forward as the leader of...